INTRODUCTION

UNITED STATES STRATEGY ON COUNTERING CORRUPTION

Pursuant to the National Security Study Memorandum on Establishing the Fight Against Corruption as a Core United States National Security Interest

INTRODUCTION

When government officials abuse public power for private gain, they do more than simply appropriate illicit wealth. Corruption robs citizens of equal access to vital services, denying the right to quality healthcare, public safety, and education. It degrades the business environment, subverts economic opportunity, and exacerbates inequality. It often contributes to human rights violations and abuses, and can drive migration. As a fundamental threat to the rule of law, corruption hollows out institutions, corrodes public trust, and fuels popular cynicism toward effective, accountable governance. Moreover, the impacts of corruption frequently reverberate far beyond the immediate environment in which the acts take place. In today’s globalized world, corrupt actors bribe across borders, harness the international financial system to stash illicit wealth abroad, and abuse democratic institutions to advance anti-democratic aims. Emerging research and major journalistic exposés have documented the extent to which legal and regulatory deficiencies in the developed world offer corrupt actors the means to offshore and launder illicit wealth. This dynamic in turn strengthens the hand of those autocratic leaders whose rule is predicated on the ability to co-opt and reward elites. On June 3, 2021, President Biden established the fight against corruption as a core national security interest of the United States. As he wrote in National Security Study Memorandum-1 (NSSM-1), “corruption threatens United States national security, economic equity, global antipoverty and development efforts, and democracy itself….[B]y effectively preventing and countering corruption and demonstrating the advantages of transparent and accountable governance, we can secure a critical advantage for the United States and other democracies.” Pursuant to NSSM-1, Federal departments and agencies have conducted an interagency review to take stock of existing U.S. Government anti-corruption efforts and to identify and seek to rectify persistent gaps in the fight against corruption. In parallel with this review, departments and agencies have begun to accelerate and amplify their efforts to prevent and combat corruption at home and abroad; bring transparency to the United States’ and international financial systems; and make it increasingly difficult for corrupt actors to shield their activities. This first United States Strategy on Countering Corruption builds on the findings of the review and lays out a comprehensive approach for how the United States will work domestically and internationally, with governmental and non-governmental partners, to prevent, limit, and respond to corruption and related crimes. The Strategy places special emphasis on the transnational dimensions of the challenges posed by corruption, including by recognizing the ways in which corrupt actors have used the U.S. financial system and other rule-of-law based systems to launder their ill-gotten gains.

To curb corruption and its deleterious effects, the U.S. Government will organize its efforts around five mutually reinforcing pillars of work:  Modernizing, coordinating, and resourcing U.S. Government efforts to fight corruption;  Curbing illicit finance;  Holding corrupt actors accountable;  Preserving and strengthening the multilateral anti-corruption architecture; and,  Improving diplomatic engagement and leveraging foreign assistance resources to advance policy goals. By pursuing concrete lines of effort that advance strategic objectives under each of these pillars, and integrating anti-corruption efforts into relevant policy-making processes, the United States intends to lead in promoting prosperity and security for the American people and people around the world.